Ice and Blood
by DeathBySpoon09
Summary: My 'guesstimation' of what the new Battle of Five Armies trailer means. Features Legolas, Tauriel, Bolg and Thranduil. If Legolas has half of his father's pride, he'll be spoiling for revenge after that brawl in Laketown. Azog's spawn won't go down easily though, and at what cost? And who will Thranduil blame...?


**(DISCLAIMER: I have not the faintest of clues how any of this will actually play out in TBOFA. All I have to go on is the quick glimpses and flashes from the trailer, so I decided to completely make a whole scene up. Hopefully I'll be proven wrong when the movie comes out, but here it is! ^_^***

**DISCLAIMER AGAIN: Violence and character injury)**

It was done.  
>The crumpled behemoth that had been Bolg lay nearby, body rapidly cooling on the frigid ground. The spawn of the Pale Orc still sneered even in death, and it was a horrible sight to behold. No longer would this particular evil plague Middle-Earth.<p>

And it was thanks to the only son of Thranduil that it was so. However, there had been a price to pay for such a victory.

Her knife dropping to the stones with a clatter, Tauriel closed the distance quickly to where Legolas himself had fallen. The fight had been short but brutal, with both combatants fighting like there was a score centuries old between them to settle. Tauriel knew her prince, and the unfinished brawl between himself and Bolg in Laketown had been a blow to his pride. She couldn't have held him back from taking on the enormous orc even if she'd had the chance to try. Bolg was never alone, and the sheer number of his filthy minions had kept her at bay from assisting Legolas. It seemed that fate had something against allowing the two of them to fight side-by-side.

There had been time though to witness the duel come to it's swift conclusion. Bolg had come rushing at the much smaller elf prince with a speed and ferocity that had startled Tauriel even from where she stood across the glacier's edge. Legolas had been ready for the charge though, and met the orc with sword out. Orcrist had struck true and deep, running Bolg through even as his enormous body weight had assisted in hastening death.

Such momentum could not be easily stopped by the narrow edge of a sword though. Even dying, Bolg had slammed in Legolas with what Tauriel could only imagine had been the force of a dozen charging horses. The two of them had gone hurtling backward against the icy wall behind...the icy wall covered with sharp, jagged edges. Tauriel had been unable to see Legolas past Bolg, but she had cried aloud regardless. The final orcs barely even registered as she killed them, desperate to get to her prince.

Pushing past Bolg's corpse, she could already see that it was bad. Normally Legolas would emerge from even the most violent of skirmishes with barely even a scratch. Seeing him fail to rise had confirmed that this was not a normal day. Gingerly, Tauriel laid a hand on Legolas's shoulder and rolled him. The sharp ice had cut deep gouges into his back and shoulders, tearing at the flimsy tunic and crushing his quiver. With such a mess before her, it was impossible to tell how deep any of the wounds might have been. Glancing up, a chill ran down the Silvan Captain's spine at the sight of blood on the icy wall.

Legolas still did not stir nor open his eyes, and Tauriel knew she had no means by which to treat his injuries. A wave of despair and horror crashed down upon her, and she cradled Legolas in her lap. Something warm splashed down her cheeks, and she realized that she was weeping.

"You cannot die, mellon. Not here, not like this..."

A shadow fell across the cold stone ground, and Tauriel realized she had not even registered the approach. Raising her grief-stained face, she did not know whether it was fear or sadness that she felt when the silhouette of Thranduil stood starkly outlined in the winter sun. A long moment of silence passed, with only the wind on the mountain speaking.

"...What have you done?" The question was spoken with absolutely deadly quiet from the elven king. When Tauriel did not answer, Thranduil whispered "Rise."

Bow in hand and shaking, Tauriel found her feet and stood. With the son of the elvenking lying still and cold at her feet, she did not know what she expected or deserved to befall her. Now eye-to-eye with Thranduil, Tauriel saw rage and...death written there. Her eyes widened, and she instinctively brought up her bow with arrow notched. Call it foolishness or simply self-preservation.

Thranduil was quicker than a striking snake though. His sword hissed through the air like a whip, slicing her faithful bow in half at the grip. The arrow went skittering away across the ground, and it sounded like a death knell to Tauriel. True, kin-slaying was something elves abhorred, but somehow Tauriel doubted Thranduil cared much about that at the moment. Those icy blue eyes, filled with wild grief and darkest anger certainly looked like they were capable of anything.

"Ada...Don't." It was little more than a whisper, but the ears of elves are sharp. In an instant, Thranduil went from avenger to father. Shoving Tauriel aside as though she were not even there, the elvenking fell to his knees beside his son. Legolas was awake, and looking back and forth from Tauriel to Thranduil. "I would be dead if not for Tauriel." With a flicker of his blue eyes and a nod, the prince indicated the corpses of orcs strewn all around; Tauriel's handiwork.

Thranduil did not look at Tauriel, nor even look where Legolas indicated. He had eyes only for his son, and stayed kneeling even as Legolas painfully propped himself up on his elbows. Tauriel for her part felt the breath she had been holding rush out of her in a frosty cloud of relief.

The world, which had for a moment stopped, once again resumed turning.


End file.
